Borobudur and Batik - Semarang, Indonesia

Today we arrived in Semarang.  This is our second stop in Indonesia, and it is home to the other half of the ship’s staff.  One of our room stewards, Saeff, lives 30 minutes from the terminal, and he was very happy to be going home for the day, just like Jery got off at the Bali stop! They certainly deserve a day off, and we, as guests, gave them the days off.  By the way, Vi is blogging today for a change.

Semarang is in Central Java.  Ever heard of “Java Man”?  Oldest human fossil was found here in Java in the 1890's.  We left the Semarang port under police escort as there is so much traffic.  Again, so many scooters.  We saw women riding scooters side-saddle!  Our first stop was at the Ambarawa Train Station where we boarded an antique steam train circa 1904.  It was so amazing to be on a train powered by wood!  Our train took us on a 30 minute ride through the countryside.  This is where we saw images that I’ve only ever seen in National Geographic … life happens along the train tracks …. 

We saw workers in the rice paddies wearing their traditional hats and boots up to here.  They were weeding, plowing, doing back-breaking work in heat that rivals Tennessee in August!  They would look up from their work and wave at us as the train passed.  In the next field up, we saw fish farms.  They farm fish here, too, and we also saw people fishing in the little lakes next to the fish farms.  The most difficult of the work we saw was people were harvesting mud from these same fields.  They were covered in mud from head to toe, and were filling sacks full of the mud and loading the sacks onto trucks!  It mud is used for fertilizer.  The workers looked like they had been dunked in a chocolate fountain.  This type of labor is why so many of them have chosen life aboard the cruise ships!  It was a very eye-opening train ride.

Our bus then took us, still under police escort, to the incredible Borobudur temple!  Around here, it is considered one of the Wonders of the World, and it is on the UNESCO World Heritage list.  Borobudur is the largest Buddhist monument/temple in existence.  It is one of the “B’s” that LeRoy told you about.  It is “awesome” in the truest form of the word.  It was built from volcanic rock in 700-800 AD.  It was suddenly and mysteriously abandoned in the 1500’s, and lost to the jungle for several hundred years.  In the early to mid 1800’s, it was re-discovered by Sir Thomas Raffles, the British governor of Java.  The temple is 9 levels high, stacked like a square cake.  It has 504 Buddha statues.  There are 72 bell shaped stupas that each have a Buddha statue in them.  There are many reliefs carved into the sides of the temple that depict all the life history and stories of Buddha. There were local people all around the temple wanting to provide assistance up the steps or give you shade under an umbrella for a dollar or two.  They were friendly, but needing the money.  The temple is surrounded by beautiful mountains.  There are no bad pictures taken here!  There are many steps to the top of the temple, and it was quite a climb on this hot, humid day!  We were dripping wet at the top!  The view, though, was magnificent!

After our descent and another 100 pictures, we were provided a beautiful, delicious lunch of local dishes.  We had to cool off before we could eat.  LeRoy cooled off with a Tiger beer and I downed a Coca-Cola in time not seen since I was 10 years old!  There was a band seated in the center of the tables that performed traditional plinky-plunky music while we dined on coconut chicken, curry pork, chicken on a stick, rice and veggies.  They had these puffed rice chips that everyone just loves that look like pork rinds back home!  The dessert table was my favorite – filled with all kinds of rice cakes, exotic fruits, some sort of pudding cake wrapped in banana leaves, and fried bananas (we must be in the Southern bit of Java - ha ha!)  My favorite was a little syrup filled ball of dough that was rolled in coconut, that squirted the yummy sweet center out when you cut into it!  Needless to say, LeRoy didn’t care for it.  He doesn’t do coconut! 

Our last stop took us to a visitor/tourist trap ... I mean visitor center where we could watch a traditional puppet show and finish our Indonesian shopping.  It's funny that the vendors/hawkers run from tourist trap to tourist trap.  They know the itinerary.  We saw the same ones at the foot of Borobudur as were at the visitor center!  This is where the third “B” came into play.  The third “B” is for “Batik”. We saw Batik for days ... shirts and sarongs of every conceivable pattern.  Batik is a fabric specially produced here in Indonesia.  There are unique patterns of earth tone colors … brown, beige, maroon, golds, tans.  LeRoy bought a very nice looking one that he wore to dinner.  He got compliments galore!  He also bought a wooden carved elephant that now resides in our room along with several wooden dragons from Komodo Island, turtles from Panama and whale tails from Tonga!  We have a regular menagerie in our room!    As the police escort guided us home in the rain, we were happy, tired and definitely have a better understanding of Indonesia.

Next stop is Singapore - - - we will have to rest up quickly as we will be there for 2 days!

Thanks for following us. Hope to see you there.

Vialula & LeRoy

Indonesian-themed gala aboard the ship